"When it comes to Apple products, the iPad and the iPhone get all the headlines. But in recent years, the company's Macintosh line of computers has enjoyed a remarkable revival that has been vital to Apple's emergence as the most valued technology company on Wall Street. In the latest sign of that comeback, Autodesk plans to announce on Tuesday that it is bringing its flagship AutoCAD design and engineering software to the Mac for the first time in nearly two decades."

The reason why autocad is so expensive is that it is meant for professionals and people who use it make a lot of money out of it. My company has done projects worth 50 million dollars before (with over 10 million in pure profit).

The reason why autocad is so expensive is that autodesk believed they had an effective lock-in (via engineering firms having a huge library of existing DWG-format drawings), and that the "market" would therefore pay whatever price autodesk asked.

Autodesk no longer has that DWG-format lock-in. Some engineering firms are too risk-averse to try to replace autocad, but many are not. It may come to pass that the market may no longer be willing to pay autodesk ransomware prices.

The actual cost of AutoCAD is really not that much of a deal considering other business expenses associated with the type of business which use that product, and the return of investment is rather obvious.

There are actually competing CAD packages which are even more expensive than AutoCAD, if anything AutoCAD was viewed as the cheaper alternative during most of the 80s and early 90s.

Oh, and there is also another thing that most companies need when purchasing these type of packages: support.

You'll find out that the reality of how business operates may be in stark contrast from the perspective of an individual who is not in the position of purchasing such products.